Milwaukee’s Good Food Movement

They are the people who will not leave this planet
without first bettering it, the citizens who simply cannot live their lives
ignoring the fact that they share a community with people who are suffering from
hunger. The individuals devoted to improving Milwaukee’s food system contribute
to the movement for various reasons—be it economic, social, environmental,
spiritual, personal, educational or a combination of such—but the end result is
the same: Milwaukee is a better place because the people listed below live and
work here. Our city certainly doesn’t lack for heroes, and this list hardly
captures the swelling number of folks who improve Milwaukee every day by making sure their
neighbors have safe, equitable access to healthy food, but these individuals
and the organizations they work with are contributing on a tremendous scale and
deserve special recognition for their hard work.

Will Allen,
Growing Power

There are many cities in the United States
making important strides in urban agriculture, but they don’t have Will Allen.
The founder and CEO of Growing Power has not only put Milwaukee on the urban ag map, he has
catapulted our city to capital-status. His genius is in the way he has
formulated his methodology for cultivating, harvesting and delivering healthy
foods and serving the very real need of feeding people. A prolific and
inspiring speaker, Allen is constantly teaching others the way of urban ag,
which means the everyday operation of Growing Power is often in the hands of
his devoted army of staff, interns and volunteers.

Martha Davis
Kipcak, Center for Resilient Cities

When Davis Kipcak joined the Center for Resilient
Cities—a nonprofit organization that garners public and private resources to
provide the infrastructure and assistance needed to help underserved
communities thrive and be resilient—as food program manager in July, she
brought with her years of experience working to help individuals empower and
nourish themselves. Davis Kipcak explains that what she does—as a regional
governor for Slow Food USA,
as a member of Growing Power’s board of directors, or as a member of the
Milwaukee Food Council—is simply hospitality. She “brings people to the table”
because “to do transforming food system work means to do it in a very
relational way.”

Deb Deacon,
The Milwaukee County Winter
Farmers’ Market

Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of Wisconsin
farmers’ markets that only comes from visiting 30 to 40 a year, Deacon hit the
ground running when she decided to open Milwaukee’s
first winter farmers’ market at State
Fair Park
last year. The market allows purchases to be made with QUEST Cards (debit cards
for food stamps), so in addition to extending the season for farmers wanting to
sell their goods, the market also gives low-income households access to
high-quality, locally produced vegetables, fruit, cheese and meat for an extra
six months.

Paulette
Flynn, SHARE

Paulette Flynn founded SHARE with other like-minded
individuals in San Diego
in 1983 to help people who did not want to be on public assistance, but who
needed to stretch their food dollars. SHARE, which is celebrating its 25th
anniversary in Wisconsin
this year, provides access to good, nutritious food at a reduced cost through a
volunteer-run, community-based distribution system. Flynn, who is responsible
for purchasing all of the food that SHARE distributes to more than 20,000
people per month, is particularly proud of the organization’s Mobile Market
program, a food sale service that brings high-quality, healthy foods at
affordable prices to Milwaukee
neighborhoods.

Josh
Fraundorf and James Godsil, Sweet Water Organics

Inspired by
Will Allen’s Growing Power, Fraundorf and Godsil created the world’s first
large-scale commercial aquaponic fish and vegetable farm in a repurposed
factory building. The owners’ goal is to help stimulate a leading 21st-century
industry that provides jobs, produces sustainable food and helps revitalize the
city’s unused manufacturing buildings, a mission that is exhaustively detailed
on Godsil’s online resource www.MilwaukeeRenaissance.com. Fraundorf and Godsil
strive for a lasting, positive social impact through Sweet Water’s nonprofit
foundation, which is developing programs in education and for kids at risk.

Young Kim, Fondy Food Center

Before becoming executive director of the Fondy Food
Center in 2003, Young Kim
likened his past work experience “to being handed a bucket and told to run
around and catch rainwater leaking through the ceiling.” The work he’s doing at
Fondy, connecting Milwaukee’s
North Side with locally grown food from farm to table, is “climbing on the roof
and patching the leak.” The center also operates and manages the Fondy Farmers
Market, one of the city’s largest producer-only markets, which attracts
3,000-4,000 visitors a week, as well as a number of programs that aim to remove
barriers that prevent people from having good, clean food at fair prices.

Gretchen
Mead, Victory Garden Initiative

“We’re looking for a cultural paradigm shift,” says
Gretchen Mead, director of the Victory Garden Initiative. After a career as a
clinical social worker, Mead felt she could make a larger impact if she could
transform the ailing food system that was encumbering her clients. If you’re
not going to join this charming and magnetic dynamo on her mission to grow food
in all places—back yards, front yards, rooftops and patios—get out of her way.
She is a prolific community organizer with a gift for empowering others to
become leaders.

Kymm Mutch,
Milwaukee Public Schools Nutrition Services

As director of nutrition services for MPS, Mutch is
responsible for feeding our city’s children, serving 31,000 breakfasts, 57,000
lunches and 6,000 after-school snacks per school day. Along with her master’s
degree in counseling and 25 years of experience working as a dietitian focusing
on child and adolescent nutrition, Mutch brings an entrepreneurial spirit to
her work. MPS students are enjoying whole-grain breads, fresh fruits and a
variety of vegetables because of the relationships Mutch has forged with local
suppliers, like Growing Power.

Peter
Sandroni, La Merenda

If you want to know what integrity actually tastes
like, enjoy a meal at La Merenda, where chef/owner Peter Sandroni has the
uncanny ability to practice alchemy, transforming ingredients into something
magical. Beyond the fact that he’s a remarkable chef, Sandroni is dedicated to
sourcing his ingredients locally. He is exceptionally generous with his time,
whether he’s cooking breakfast at the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers’ Market
or visiting tables on a hectic Saturday night.

Venice Williams, SeedFolks Youth Ministry

“You can’t feed the body and not feed the soul at
the same time,” explains Williams, a Lutheran minister who has been working in Milwaukee for more than
20 years. Williams is responsible for creating and implementing the hands-on
programming at Alice’s Garden, a 2-acre
community garden in the Johnsons
Park neighborhood that
currently supports 100 families and community organizations growing fresh herbs,
fruits and vegetables. Williams strives to assist families in living healthier
lives on a variety of levels, through engaging children’s programming and adult
environmental and agricultural education.

I'm a former Milwaukeean. I live in the northwest now. I visited Milwaukee recently and was shocked by how poorly-served the area is by grocery stores. Yes, Sendik's and the coop are great but you can drive for miles throughout the metro area without seeing a grocery store.

Now that I've read this three times, I realize that you truly have left out Braise RSA from this article! How you can write about the local food movement in Milwaukee without highlighting this amazing business is beyond me. Please consider printing an addendum with your apologies to Dave Swanson of Braise, and the work he has done.